AutumnCrisp Apples

Sweet first, with enough acid behind it to keep the sweetness from going flat. The flavor is floral and honeyed — tasters reach for violets, lilac, banana and a little spice — on a background that is recognisably Golden Delicious without being as mild.

It is a sweet apple with structure rather than a sweet apple with nothing else going on. If you find Fuji one-note and Granny Smith punishing, this sits in between.

Sweet, clearly. Every published description says the same thing: sweeter than it is tart. But the acid is real and it is doing work — without it the apple would taste like sugar water, which is the usual fate of a very sweet apple.

If you are buying for someone who says they hate tart apples, this is a safe choice. If you want something genuinely sharp, go to RubyFrost, which is AutumnCrisp’s own child and much the sharper apple.

Sweeter than McIntosh, Cortland or RubyFrost. About level with Gala and Honeycrisp. Less sweet than CandyCrisp or Fuji, which are sweet with nothing pushing back.

What makes AutumnCrisp memorable is not the sweetness on its own but the floral, honeyed note that comes with it.

It is genuinely crisp, and the crispness is the point of the variety. Descriptions reach for “explosive” and compare it directly to Honeycrisp. The Cornell breeding program that produced it has spent decades selecting specifically for crispness and juiciness.

The grain is a touch coarser and more yielding than Honeycrisp’s, which some people prefer — Honeycrisp can eat almost foamy.

Very. “Practically explodes with juice” is how one reviewer put it on first tasting, and the New York Apple Association’s own description leads with extra crisp and juicy.

That juiciness is why it slices well for a platter and why it is a nuisance to eat over a keyboard.

A pinkish to bright red blush over a yellow-green background, usually broken into deeper red stripes and freckled with pale lenticel dots. Some fruit is nearly all red; some keeps a lot of yellow.

The plant patent for its child RubyFrost describes the parent in exactly those terms: “red blush color on a yellow/green background, and a globose fruit shape.”

Medium to large, and round to slightly flattened — broad in the beam rather than tall. Ours typically run about 170 to 270 grams, which is roughly 6 to 9.5 ounces.

That means two to three apples to the pound. It is a good lunchbox size at the small end and a good slicing apple at the large end.

No. The skin is thin and tender for an apple of this size, which is worth saying because its child RubyFrost is known for exactly the opposite — thick skin is RubyFrost’s most common complaint.

AutumnCrisp did not pass that trait on and did not have it to begin with. Leave the skin on.

White to cream, sometimes with a faint yellow tint, in a medium-fine grain. It stays that color far longer than most apples once cut, which is the variety’s headline trait.

The white flesh against the red blush is why it photographs so well on a cheese board or a fruit tray.

Yes, and a distinctive one. It is floral rather than simply fruity — violets and lilac come up repeatedly in tasting notes — sitting over a sweet, faintly banana-like base.

The aroma is strongest in fruit picked at proper maturity and fades in long storage, which is one more reason to eat this apple in its season.

Some people notice one. At least one careful reviewer describes a savory note in the finish and does not care for it, while also rating the apple highly overall. Most people never mention it.

We would rather tell you that than pretend every palate finds the same thing. If you are sensitive to savory notes in fruit, try one before you buy a case.

Background color is the best home test. A ripe AutumnCrisp has lost its grass-green ground color for a warm yellow under the red. Green ground means it came off early and will taste thin.

It should also feel heavy for its size and give a sharp snap rather than a dull crunch. Picked properly, the aroma is obvious the moment you cut one.

Yes, noticeably. Fruit picked at the front of the window is crisper and sharper; fruit left to hang is sweeter, more floral and slightly softer. The same tree can give you two quite different apples a fortnight apart.

Reviewers who tasted it in different years reported different intensities for exactly this reason, which is normal for any apple and pronounced in this one.

Far more slowly than most apples. Every source that describes this variety calls it non-browning or very slow to oxidize, and it is the trait the apple is actually known for.

“Slow” is the honest word, not “never”. Left out overnight it will eventually discolour. Over the span of a lunch, a party platter or a school day, it stays white.

Browning is an enzyme reaction: polyphenol oxidase meets oxygen and the phenolic compounds in the flesh, and the cut surface darkens. Varieties differ in how much of that enzyme and those compounds they carry.

AutumnCrisp happens to be low on that scale. It was not engineered for it — the cross was made in 1968, long before anyone could select for it deliberately — it simply came out that way and Cornell noticed.

No. It is a conventional cross of two ordinary apple varieties, made by hand-pollinating a flower in 1968 and growing out the seed. There is nothing modified about it.

You may be thinking of the Arctic apples, which are genuinely genetically engineered for non-browning and are a completely separate product. AutumnCrisp arrived at the same place by luck and selection.

In our kitchen, slices stay visibly white for several hours at room temperature and most of a day in a covered container in the fridge — long enough that people notice and ask about it.

Exact timing depends on how thin you cut, how ripe the fruit is and how dry the air is, so treat that as a working figure rather than a guarantee.

It is close to ideal for one, and this is the use the New York Apple Association leads with. Slice it in the morning and it still looks white at lunchtime without a lemon dip or a packet of preservative.

The thin skin helps too — a child is less likely to leave the peel in the bottom of the box.

Usually not, and that is the point of buying this variety. For a same-day platter, skip it — lemon juice changes the flavor and this apple does not need the help.

If you are prepping the night before for a large event, a light acidulated dip is still cheap insurance. Slow is not never.

Three varieties we grow are notably slow: AutumnCrisp, SnowSweet and RubyFrost. It is not a coincidence in the last case — RubyFrost is AutumnCrisp’s own child.

SnowSweet is unrelated and reached the same trait separately, from a University of Minnesota cross. If slow browning is what you are shopping for, those three are the list.

Honestly, we cannot rank them from published data, because nobody has published a side-by-side measurement of all three. All three are conspicuously slower than an ordinary apple.

Practically: SnowSweet is the one people describe as almost refusing to brown; AutumnCrisp is the crispest of the three; RubyFrost is the sharpest and the best keeper.

No, and this catches people out. Browning is a surface enzyme reaction on cut flesh. Storage life is about respiration rate, firmness loss and moisture — a different set of processes entirely.

AutumnCrisp is the proof: it is one of the slowest browners we grow and one of the shorter keepers. The two traits are not connected.

It is one of the best apples we grow for exactly that. White flesh, a red blush on the peel edge, thin skin and slices that hold their color through a party.

Cut wedges rather than thin slices for a board — they stay crisp longer and hold up to dipping.

Yes, for cooking. Slice, spread on a tray, freeze hard, then bag. They come out of the freezer softer than they went in, so use them for pie, crisp, sauce or smoothies rather than expecting fresh-eating texture.

The slow-browning trait helps here: you can skip the usual lemon or ascorbic-acid dip and still get pale slices out of the bag.

All three spellings are in use and they all mean the same apple. Cornell released it under the trademarked name Autumn Crisp; nurseries write it as Autumn Crisp or Autumn Crisp (NY 674); retailers mostly close the space up to AutumnCrisp.

We use AutumnCrisp because that is how it reaches shoppers. The cultivar underneath is NY 674 either way.

Because a grower in Concord, Massachusetts gave his unreleased test trees informal names, and the name stuck locally for years. The variety was corrected in public in 2013: “The apple previously sold around here as ‘Early Jonagold’ is really called ‘Autumn Crisp’.”

It is not a Jonagold of any kind. It has no Jonathan parent — though, oddly, it does have Jonathan as a grandparent through Monroe.

Not as a parent, but they share ancestry. Jonagold is Golden Delicious crossed with Jonathan. AutumnCrisp is Golden Delicious crossed with Monroe, and Monroe is Jonathan crossed with Rome Beauty.

So both apples carry Golden Delicious and Jonathan. That is very likely why the “Early Jonagold” nickname sounded plausible to the people using it — but the family resemblance is at one remove, and one reviewer who knows both says plainly that Autumn Crisp is not especially Jonagold-like.

No, and this is the single biggest source of confusion around the name. AUTUMNCRISP® is also a large seedless green table grape bred by Sun World International and sold under the code Sugra35.

Two entirely different plants, two different owners, one trademark spelling. If your search results are full of green grapes in clamshells, that is why.

They arrived at almost exactly the same moment, which is part of why the confusion is so durable. Cornell introduced the Autumn Crisp apple in 2009, and Sun World’s US plant patent for the AUTUMNCRISP grape was granted in November 2009.

The grape reached commercial volume in 2012 and is now grown on several continents, so it dominates the search results for the name.

No. Autumn Glory is a Washington State variety marketed on cinnamon and caramel notes. AutumnCrisp is a New York Cornell variety with a floral, honeyed profile. Different breeders, different states, different apples.

They are shelf neighbours in autumn and their names begin with the same word. That is the whole of the relationship.

No. Cosmic Crisp is WA 38, bred at Washington State University from Honeycrisp and Enterprise and launched in 2019. AutumnCrisp is Cornell’s NY 674, bred in New York from Golden Delicious and Monroe and introduced in 2009.

Both names end in “crisp”, which by now is less a description than a naming convention in the apple business.

No. Honeycrisp is a University of Minnesota variety, patented as USPP 7,197 and released in 1991. AutumnCrisp is a Cornell variety introduced in 2009 with no shared parentage at all.

They are compared constantly because both are prized for crunch. The comparison is about texture, not about family.

It is the accession number Cornell’s breeding program gave the seedling while it was being evaluated. Breeding programs number thousands of seedlings and only a handful ever earn a name — Cornell has released 69 apple varieties since 1890 out of vastly more that were tested.

You will still see the number on nursery tags as “Autumn Crisp (NY 674)”, because growers knew it by the number for decades before it had a name.

Autumn Crisp is the trademarked marketing name. NY 674 is the cultivar designation. That is the same arrangement used for SnapDragon (NY 1) and RubyFrost (NY 2), both also from Cornell.

Nurseries pay a royalty per tree to propagate it — Adams County Nursery lists $1.25 — so it is a managed variety even though we could find no US plant patent covering the apple itself.

Because a variety release is a process, not a date. The cross was made in 1968, the selection was named and trademarked in one year, entered nursery catalogues in another and reached shops in a third.

Most specialist records give 2009 and some Cornell listings give 2010. Introduced around 2009 to 2010 is the honest wording, and both dates are defensible.

Cornell University’s apple breeding program at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York — now Cornell AgriTech. It is the oldest continuously running apple breeding program in the United States.

The program has released 69 apple varieties since 1890, including Cortland, Empire, Jonagold, Macoun, SnapDragon and RubyFrost.

1968, at Geneva. The seedling was carried as NY 674 for roughly four decades before it was named and released around 2009.

Forty-one years from pollen to shop shelf is long even by apple standards, but not unusual at Geneva — its parent Monroe took 39 years, and Fortune took 33.

Apple breeding is slow arithmetic. A seedling takes five or more years to fruit at all, then needs years of evaluation, then propagation onto rootstocks, then multi-site trials, then commercial trials with growers, then a decision about whether anyone will actually plant it.

Plenty of good selections sit in a research block for decades because the market is not asking for them. AutumnCrisp’s moment came when consumers started paying for crunch.

Geneva, New York, at the north end of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes. It was founded in 1880 as the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station and became part of Cornell in 1923.

A remarkable share of the apples in an American supermarket trace back to that one campus.

Cornell’s long-serving apple breeder, and the person behind most of the modern Geneva apples. Her varieties include SnapDragon, RubyFrost, Fortune and AutumnCrisp.

Her work has always aimed at the things people actually notice when they bite an apple — crispness, juice and flavour.

New to shops, old as a plant. The cross dates from 1968, so the genetics are older than most people reading this. It only reached the public around 2009.

That gap is common with university varieties and is worth knowing when a marketing page calls something a “new” apple.

No. An heirloom is generally an open-pollinated variety of some age that has been passed along outside the commercial nursery trade. AutumnCrisp is a deliberate modern cross from a university program, trademarked and royalty-bearing.

If you want genuine heirlooms from us, look at Golden Russet, Northern Spy or Roxbury Russet.

Fruit quality in a New York climate: crispness, juiciness and flavor in an apple that ripens in the September gap between the early varieties and the main late crop.

The slow browning was a bonus nobody was aiming at in 1968. It turned out to be the trait that made the apple commercially interesting forty years later.

Not at Gala or Honeycrisp scale, no. It is planted mainly by direct-market growers — farm stands, pick-your-own orchards, farm shops and farms that ship, like ours — rather than by growers packing for national supermarket chains.

Nurseries say plainly that its popularity is strongest with direct-market growers. That is a compliment about the fruit and a warning about the supply chain.

Short storage life. A supermarket chain needs fruit it can hold in controlled atmosphere for months and move through a distribution network. An apple that is at its best for a few weeks does not fit that model.

This is the same commercial logic that pushed Golden Russet out of shops for entirely different reasons. The store does not reject the flavor; it rejects the schedule.

69 since 1890, which is more than any other American program. The list runs from Cortland in the 1910s through to Cordera, Firecracker and Pink Luster in the last decade.

AutumnCrisp sits in the middle of that history as both a release in its own right and as a parent of one of the newest ones.

Thoroughly. Bred in Geneva, New York; its parent Monroe was also bred in Geneva and named for Monroe County; its grandparent Rome Beauty is from Ohio and Jonathan from New York’s Hudson Valley.

Only Golden Delicious, a West Virginia chance seedling, comes from outside the state.

Golden Delicious crossed with Monroe, at Geneva in 1968.

This is not a claim we are taking from a catalogue. It is stated in a federal document: US Plant Patent 22,207, the patent for RubyFrost, records that “‘Autumn Crisp’ is a hybrid of ‘Golden Delicious’בMonroe’.”

Sweetness, aroma and low acid. Golden Delicious is one of the most used parents in apple breeding precisely because it passes on a sweet, honeyed, versatile fruit.

It is also the parent of Jonagold, Mutsu, Gala, Pink Lady and a long list of others. AutumnCrisp is a sibling in a very large family.

A New York variety bred at the same Geneva station and named for Monroe County. It is a cross of Jonathan and Rome Beauty, and it was introduced as a possible replacement for the old commercial standby Baldwin.

It is a dual-purpose apple — good fresh and good for processing — and it is scarce today outside collections and breeding blocks.

Ulysses P. Hedrick, the horticulturist at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, made the Jonathan × Rome Beauty cross in 1910. The variety was not released until 1949.

Thirty-nine years. Then another 19 years before it was used as a parent for AutumnCrisp, and another 41 before AutumnCrisp reached shops. The apple in your hand is the end of a hundred-year project.

Three of them are famous: Golden Delicious on one side, and Jonathan and Rome Beauty on the other through Monroe.

That is a sweet honeyed apple, a sharp aromatic one and a big firm baker. You can taste the first two clearly. The Rome shows up mostly in how well the slices hold their shape in an oven.

Yes. RubyFrost is Braeburn crossed with Autumn Crisp, made at Geneva in 1992. The patent records that 1,017 seedlings came from that cross and exactly one, NY 92609-463, was selected.

Those are the odds of apple breeding, stated plainly in a public document. One in a thousand, and then twenty years of evaluation before it got a name.

It looks that way. RubyFrost is its child and is also sold on slow browning, and AutumnCrisp is the parent that brings the trait — Braeburn browns normally.

Whatever the mechanism, both apples hold their colour beautifully on a cheese board.

Not much else that is obvious, and the patent says so in its own dry way: compared with RubyFrost, AutumnCrisp has “earlier maturity, red blush color on a yellow/green background, and a globose fruit shape.”

In plain English — RubyFrost is later, redder, more oblique in shape and much sharper in flavor. The child took after Braeburn on almost everything except the cut surface.

Not by parentage. SnapDragon is NY 1, from a Honeycrisp cross; AutumnCrisp is NY 674, from Golden Delicious and Monroe.

They are related in the sense that matters commercially: same program, same breeder, same trademark-plus-cultivar-number structure, and both sold on crunch.

Only through the Geneva program, not through parentage. Cortland is Ben Davis × McIntosh; Empire is McIntosh × Red Delicious.

Both are McIntosh-line apples and taste like it. AutumnCrisp carries no McIntosh at all, which is why it is firmer and keeps its texture in the oven where they do not.

No, it is a diploid, and it is self-sterile. That means it produces good pollen and can pollinate other apples, unlike triploids such as Mutsu and Jonagold, whose pollen is useless.

It also means it needs a different variety nearby to set fruit of its own. See the growing questions below.

Mid-September through October. Nurseries in Pennsylvania put the harvest at mid-September, a few days after McIntosh; Cornell’s own writing notes it is often picked into October further north, where the cooler weather lets the flavor fill out.

Both are right. Picking date moves with latitude, elevation and season. See Harvest Times for where this year’s crop actually stands.

Weeks, not months, and we would rather tell you that up front. Cornell researchers describe short storage life as this variety’s main shortcoming.

In a home refrigerator expect roughly three to five weeks of genuinely good eating, and a fortnight or so on a cool counter. It is a September apple, meant to be eaten in September.

The short answer is that six months is not our experience and is not what Cornell says. We think that figure gets copied from generic apple-storage advice or from controlled-atmosphere commercial figures that do not apply in a kitchen.

Nursery and specialist pomological records go the other way and say plainly that it does not store well in cold storage. Buy it to eat now. If you want an apple that will still be excellent in March, buy EverCrisp, GoldRush or Golden Russet.

Cold, humid and alone. The crisper drawer of your refrigerator, in a loosely closed bag with a few holes, is close to ideal — near freezing, high humidity, some air movement.

Do not store them next to onions, garlic or anything strongly scented; apple flesh takes up odours readily. Do not wash them until you are about to eat them.

Because an apple respires, and respiration roughly doubles for every 18 °F of warmth. A short-storage apple on a warm counter loses its crunch fast, and crunch is the entire reason to buy this one.

A week on the counter costs an AutumnCrisp more than it costs a GoldRush. Put it in the fridge the day it arrives.

For a few days, yes, and it looks handsome doing it. Beyond that you are spending the apple’s texture for the sake of the display.

Keep a day or two’s worth in the bowl and the rest in the refrigerator. Also keep it away from bananas — the ethylene they give off hurries everything nearby along.

Texture goes first, long before anything looks wrong. It gets mealy and the juice stops running. The skin may wrinkle slightly and the flesh gives under thumb pressure.

A soft AutumnCrisp is not spoiled, it is just past its best use. Cook it — sauce and crisp do not care about crunch.

Yes. Peel or not as you like, core, slice, tray-freeze until hard, then bag with the air pressed out. They keep about a year and come out fine for pie, crisp, sauce and smoothies.

Freezing ruptures the cell walls, so frozen slices will never eat crisp again. That is true of every apple, not a fault of this one.

Less than you would with most apples, which is a real convenience. The slow-browning trait means you can tray-freeze them plain and still get pale slices out of the bag.

If you are freezing a large batch that will sit for many months, a light ascorbic-acid dip is still worth the trouble for color.

It can, and it will behave like a short-storage apple wherever you put it. A cellar at 32 to 38 °F with high humidity will beat a kitchen counter comfortably.

Check the fruit weekly and pull anything bruised or breaking down. One rotting apple in a tray gases the rest along with ethylene.

No. Washing removes the natural wax bloom that slows moisture loss, and any water left in the stem cavity invites rot. Store them dry and dirty, wash them at the point of eating.

Our general washing and handling advice for every variety is on the Honeycrisp.com apple FAQ.

It varies with the season by a week or more in either direction, so we do not publish a fixed date. Harvest Times tracks where each variety stands as the crop comes in.

Apple Crop Growing 2026 lists what is still on the tree, and Ready to Ship shows what is leaving the farm today.

Fresh eating first, and sliced fresh eating above all — platters, lunchboxes, salads, cheese boards, anything where a cut apple has to sit and still look white.

It also bakes respectably, holding its shape better than a McIntosh or Cortland would. It is not a first-choice sauce apple, because it is too sweet and too firm to collapse cheerfully.

Yes, with one adjustment: cut the sugar. It is a sweet apple with moderate acid, so a recipe written for Granny Smith will produce a cloying pie if you follow it literally. Drop the sugar by about a third.

The slices hold their shape well — that is the Rome Beauty grandparent showing through. For a pie with more edge, blend it half and half with Northern Spy, RubyFrost or Granny Smith.

Reasonably well. It is firm-fleshed and does not slump into mush the way the McIntosh-line apples do. Expect recognisable slices in a finished pie rather than a uniform layer.

It is not as rigid as a Rome or a GoldRush. For baked whole apples specifically, Rome is still the better tool.

It makes a pale, very sweet, mild sauce. Perfectly pleasant, and slightly boring on its own — there is not enough acid to give the sauce a spine.

Blend it with something sharp. A third RubyFrost, Northern Spy or Granny Smith transforms it. You will need little or no added sugar either way.

You can, though we would not pick it first. Apple butter wants a variety that breaks down completely and carries enough acid to stand up to hours of cooking and a lot of spice.

Rome, Stayman and Jonathan are the traditional choices. Use AutumnCrisp as part of the blend for sweetness and cut the sugar accordingly.

It is one of the best apples we grow for salad, and this is the use the New York Apple Association names first. Dice it an hour ahead and it still looks freshly cut when the bowl reaches the table.

Thin skin, white flesh, sweet flavor and a genuine crunch against greens. It does not need acidulating, which means the dressing tastes of what you made it from.

It presses a pale, sweet, aromatic juice that is very easy to drink. For sweet cider it is a lovely sweetening component in a blend.

For hard cider it is too gentle on its own — there is not enough bite to build on. Blend it with something sharper such as Golden Russet or GoldRush.

Very good, and the slow browning is the reason. Most apples need a lemon or ascorbic-acid dip before drying or the rings come out tan; AutumnCrisp dries pale without one.

Slice an eighth of an inch thick, skin on, and dry at 135 °F for six to ten hours until leathery. The sugar concentrates, so they need nothing added.

Usually not. The skin is thin enough that it disappears in a pie or a crisp, and it helps the slices keep their edges.

Peel for a smooth sauce, a refined tart or a custard-set dessert where texture is the point. Otherwise leave it.

About six for a standard 9-inch double-crust pie, give or take with the size of the fruit. Ours run medium to large, so two or three make a pound and a pie takes roughly two and a half to three pounds.

Slice a little thicker than usual — these are juicy, and thin slices in a sweet apple can flood the bottom crust.

A little, yes. It is a juicy apple, and juicy apples make wet fillings. An extra tablespoon of flour or a teaspoon of cornstarch over a standard recipe is usually enough.

The other old trick works too: macerate the sliced apples with the sugar for half an hour, pour off the liquid, reduce it in a pan and stir it back in.

It works, though it is an unusual choice. Caramel dipping normally wants a tart apple to cut the sugar, and AutumnCrisp is sweet. The result is sweet on sweet.

Its saving grace is the crunch, which survives the dip better than a softer apple would. If you want the classic contrast, use Granny Smith.

Extremely well, and for the same reason it works in a green salad: you can prep it ahead. Matchsticked AutumnCrisp in a cabbage slaw or a farro salad will still look right an hour later.

Its sweetness sits nicely against vinegar, mustard, blue cheese and smoked meat.

Yes. Thick rings, a hot dry pan or a clean grate, three or four minutes a side. The flesh is firm enough to survive the handling and sweet enough to caramelise readily.

Good next to pork, sausage or a sharp cheese. Do not salt it until it comes off the heat.

A medium AutumnCrisp — about 215 grams — is roughly 105 to 120 calories. A small one is nearer 85 to 95; a large one runs 130 to 150.

The figure to work from is 52 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. AutumnCrisp runs medium to large, so a whole one is comfortably a full serving of fruit.

A large AutumnCrisp of about 270 grams comes to roughly 130 to 150 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~170 g) about 88, medium (~215 g) about 112, large (~270 g) about 140. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.52 for a close estimate at any size.

A small AutumnCrisp of about 170 grams is roughly 85 to 95 calories.

A kitchen scale beats guessing from the word on the bag — and the apple count on a case is the quickest guide, since a 72-count fruit is considerably larger than a 125-count.

Per 100 grams of raw AutumnCrisp with the skin on: about 52 calories, 13.81 g carbohydrate, 2.4 g fiber, 0.26 g protein, 0.17 g fat, 107 mg potassium and 85.56 g water.

For a medium apple of about 215 grams that is roughly 112 calories, 30 g carbohydrate and 5.2 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 28 to 32 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 5.2 grams is fiber — so approximately 25 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 13.81 grams. That is typical for an apple.

Roughly 30 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 5.2 grams of that being dietary fiber.

Essentially all of an apple’s calories are carbohydrate — there is almost no fat and, in this cultivar, about 0.26 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 20 to 24 grams in a medium apple, all of it the fruit’s own — nothing is added. That is 10.4 grams per 100 grams of fruit.

AutumnCrisp eats sweet and floral with a clean edge of tartness behind it — honeyed rather than sugary, which is what makes it so easy to keep eating.

About 5.2 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.4 grams per 100 grams.

That is about average for an apple. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.6 grams of protein and 0.4 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — AutumnCrisp is about 85.56 percent water by weight.

About 107 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 230 mg in a medium apple.

That is typical for an apple.

About 9.9 mg in a medium apple — 4.6 mg per 100 grams.

Apples are not a major vitamin C source next to citrus; an orange carries roughly ten times as much. What there is sits mostly just under the skin and degrades with heat, so a raw unpeeled apple retains more of it than a baked one.

For fiber, yes — roughly a third of it sits in the skin, along with most of the fruit’s colour compounds.

AutumnCrisp skin is thin and tender for an apple of its size — it is not the thick chewy skin its child RubyFrost is known for. Leave it on. Peeling costs you the red blush that makes a slice plate look like something. Rinse under running water and rub with your hands before eating, as with any fresh fruit.

Roughly two large, three medium or four small apples make a pound — three medium is the standard working assumption in American recipes.

AutumnCrisp runs medium to large, so two or three to the pound is typical. A 9-inch pie takes about six.

In texture, yes — both are sold on an explosive crunch and both are very juicy. In everything else, no. They share no parentage, come from different universities twenty years apart, and taste distinctly different.

Honeycrisp is brighter and more balanced, with a lighter, almost foamy cell structure. AutumnCrisp is sweeter, more floral, denser in the grain, and browns far more slowly. Honeycrisp also keeps much longer.

Parent and child. RubyFrost is Braeburn crossed with AutumnCrisp, and it took after the other side of the family: later, redder, sharper, thicker-skinned and a far better keeper.

Buy AutumnCrisp if you want sweet and crisp in September. Buy RubyFrost if you want tart and firm in December. Both resist browning, which is the one trait the child clearly inherited.

Both are conspicuously slow and nobody has published a side-by-side test, so we will not pretend to rank them. SnowSweet is a University of Minnesota variety and is unrelated — it arrived at the same trait independently.

They taste nothing alike. SnowSweet is rich, low-acid and almost buttery; AutumnCrisp is crisper, brighter and more floral.

Similar sweetness, very different build. Gala is smaller, milder and softer-fleshed, and it browns at a normal rate. AutumnCrisp is bigger, crisper, more aromatic and holds its cut surface.

If Gala is what your household eats and you want the same sweetness with much more crunch, this is the upgrade.

Parent and child, and the resemblance is clear in the flavor — the same honeyed sweetness and floral aroma. Golden Delicious is yellow, softer and lower in acid; AutumnCrisp is blushed red, much crisper and better balanced.

Golden Delicious also bruises easily and AutumnCrisp does not, which matters if the fruit has to travel.

Half-cousins, in effect. Jonagold is Golden Delicious × Jonathan; AutumnCrisp is Golden Delicious × Monroe, and Monroe is half Jonathan. Both carry the same two famous ancestors by different routes.

Jonagold is larger, sharper and more complex, and it is a triploid with useless pollen. AutumnCrisp is sweeter, simpler and a useful pollinator. And the old nickname “Early Jonagold” for this apple was simply wrong.

AutumnCrisp, comfortably. Cortland has been the classic slicing apple in New York for a century because its white flesh is slow to brown — but AutumnCrisp is slower still and far crisper.

Cortland keeps its own place: it is more tart, and it cooks down beautifully where AutumnCrisp stays firm.

They ripen within days of each other and they could not be less alike. McIntosh is soft, tender-skinned, aromatic and tart, and it collapses when cooked. AutumnCrisp is crisp, sweet and holds its shape.

Many people buy both in the same week for exactly that reason — McIntosh for sauce, AutumnCrisp for the lunchbox.

Both sweet, and often compared for the name alone. CandyCrisp is the sweeter of the two by a clear margin, with a distinctly pear-like flavour and very little tartness. AutumnCrisp is brighter and more floral.

CandyCrisp is also a month later and keeps much longer. Despite the names, they are not related.

Cameo is the sharper, more balanced apple. AutumnCrisp is sweeter, softer-edged and considerably slower to brown.

Cameo is a late-October apple with good storage. AutumnCrisp is a September apple, best eaten now.

Nothing is a perfect substitute, which is the usual honest answer. For the sweetness and aroma, Gala or Golden Delicious. For the crunch, Honeycrisp or SnapDragon. For the slow-browning trick, SnowSweet or RubyFrost.

The combination of all three in one fruit is what makes it worth seeking out.

If what you want is an apple that keeps for two months in your fridge, no — buy EverCrisp and be happy. If what you want is a September apple at its peak that you cannot get in a chain store, then yes.

This variety exists in the direct-market world precisely because it does not survive the supermarket supply chain. You are buying the thing the chain cannot sell you.

Here, shipped from the farm, when the crop is in. Beyond that: farm stands, pick-your-own orchards and farm shops in apple-growing regions, mostly in New York, Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest.

You will rarely find it in a supermarket chain, because its storage life does not suit national distribution. See Ready to Ship for what is available today.

Packed in trays or cells so the fruit cannot move, and shipped as fast as the destination allows. A crisp apple that arrives bruised is a failure, so the packing does real work.

Full details on packing, transit times and destination guidance are on our shipping information page.

It travels well — it is firm and not thin-skinned — but heat costs any apple texture, and this one has less margin than a long-storage variety.

Refrigerate the box the moment it arrives rather than leaving it on a porch. That single step preserves more crunch than anything else you can do.

Yes. Case and bulk quantities are listed on our bulk and case apples page, and that is the sensible way to buy if you are putting up sauce, drying rings or feeding a crowd.

Remember the short storage life before you order a bushel — plan to process what you will not eat within a month.

It depends on the size of the fruit, not on the size of the box. Apples are packed by count, so a case holds a fixed weight of whatever size is running — larger fruit means fewer apples.

At our typical medium-to-large size that works out to roughly two to three apples per pound. The bulk and case page lists the current pack sizes and weights.

Because almost every cost in this variety runs the wrong way for cheapness: low planted acreage, a royalty on every tree, a short picking window, hand handling for a bruise-sensitive crisp apple, and no long storage to spread the season.

A supermarket apple is priced on volume and months of controlled-atmosphere storage. This one is priced on a few weeks of fruit from a small planting.

That depends on what you are buying it for. For lunchbox slices, party platters and salads — anything where cut apple has to sit — it does something cheaper apples cannot, and there is real value in that.

For cooking down into sauce, it is an expensive way to buy sugar. Use a cheaper apple and save this one for the plate.

Work backwards from how fast you will eat it. Two or three apples make a pound, and the fruit is at its best for about a month refrigerated. For a household of four eating an apple a day, five pounds is a fortnight.

Order more only if you plan to freeze or dry the surplus, both of which this variety takes to well.

Yes, from fruit-tree nurseries — Adams County, Cummins, Grandpa’s Orchard and Roots to Fruits all carry it. It is a managed variety, so expect a royalty of around $1.25 per tree on top of the tree price.

We sell fruit, not trees. Ask for it as Autumn Crisp or NY 674; both appear on nursery tags.

Rootstock decides, not the variety. On a dwarfing stock expect 8 to 12 feet; on semi-dwarf, 14 to 20 feet. Nursery listings commonly give a mature size around 12 to 16 feet tall with a 10 to 15 foot spread.

The variety itself is vigorous and upright-spreading, so give it room and expect to prune for light rather than for size alone.

Yes — it is described as healthy, vigorous and productive, and it is precocious, meaning it starts bearing young. That is the trait home growers appreciate most.

Give it full sun, decent drainage and a second variety nearby to pollinate it, and it is a straightforward tree.

It is self-sterile and an early bloomer, so it needs a different variety flowering at the same time. Golden Delicious, Gala, McIntosh, Honeycrisp or a flowering crabapple all work.

Do not rely on a triploid such as Mutsu or Jonagold — their pollen is sterile. AutumnCrisp itself is diploid and makes good pollen, so it can return the favour.

Nursery listings put it in USDA zones 5 through 8, which covers most of the apple-growing United States including all of New York.

Cornell’s own note that the flavor fills out in cooler climates suggests the cold end of that range suits it better than the warm end.

Ask us. We grow this variety, we pick it, and we ship it, so we would rather answer a question than have you guess. Contact details and our general handling advice are on the Honeycrisp.com apple FAQ.

If you want to compare it against everything else we grow before you order, the full apple varieties guide puts them side by side.